Isaiah Thomas scored 27 points and made one of Sacramento’s two four-point plays in the second half as the Kings handed the Boston Celtics their third straight lopsided loss on a California road swing, 118-96 on Sunday night.

Tony Parker had 21 points and nine assists, Manu Ginobili had several key baskets among his 20 points and the San Antonio Spurs handed the Dallas Mavericks their sixth straight loss, 111-86 on Sunday night.

The wait for Amar’e Stoudemire continues.
Stoudemire, who hoped tomorrow, New Year’s Day, would represent his return from left knee surgery, went through a full practice yesterday with some approximation of the Knicks’ roster. While claiming he felt better, Stoudemire admitted he is not yet 80 percent and…

This is about strength of symbolism as much as it is about strength of Amar’e Stoudemire’s left knee.
This is about the hope of a New Year coming together on the Garden floor tomorrow night. That is why Stoudemire needs to play against the Trail Blazers.
The Knicks…

Carmelo Anthony, who missed the past two games with a hyperextended left knee, shot on his own yesterday and did not practice with the Knicks. His status for tomorrow’s game against the Trail Blazers at the Garden is day-to-day, pending a further determination to be made today. “Carmelo was…

18 comments on “Knicks Morning News (Monday, Dec 31 2012)”

You have to start to wonder whether Amare’s knee will ever be pain-free. I remember how Allan Houston’s decline started with “I feel good, it just hurts when I do certain things” types of statements. Hopefully the microfracture thing hasn’t reached its shelf life.

Yikes. I forgot about Houston. His condition went downhill pretty fast. Though in all honesty it did not seem like management was exactly encouraging him to come back as it was in the midst of Isaiah’s “I’m not cleaning house…can’t get rid of the players that he inherited fast enough” era.

On the other hand, Ewing and a host of others played much of their careers with a sore knee or two. If Amare is just “sore” but there are no limitations aside from pain, he might as well play. Resting will not necessarily make things any better. Most of us remember Ewing having huge ice-packs on his knees after every game, sometimes even on the bench. With Houston, it seemed like the microfracture thing never really took.

This really would be an ideal time for Amare to come back. I always worried when the Knicks were rolling and blowing out opponents on a nightly basis that any change to the “chemistry” would be negative, but now that they’ve stumbled a bit and are thin up front he would be a welcome addition. Plus, we are in desperate need of scoring and can’t keep relying on JR to carry the load for the 2nd unit basically by himself.

The depth of this team when everyone is healthy will be ridiculous, and Woody’s biggest challenge will be finding minutes for everyone.

Big positive that Amar’e and Melo, especially Melo, are taking their times with these injuries.

As you know, Melo has a history of playing through injury or rushing back, letting symptoms linger. Certainly there is a case to be made that Melo is injury prone, and I do think it’s a major negative in terms of his value (I actually think it’s often explained some of the major slumps he’s had throughout his career. I’ve chronicled that here before.)

But I would rather have Melo play 60-65 games at close to full capacity as opposed to 70-75 games where he’s never healthy.

For Amar’e, I think he needs to play 10-15 minutes pretty because I think part of his hesitation is the fear of re-injuring it. If he can scrimmage he can play a few minutes here and there to get -re-assimilated, slowly build his confidence.

Obviously if you let Melo play you’re going to play him 36+, so it’s a different situation.

Here’s some footage of Amar’e and Carmelo killing the Jazz (they combined for 65 points in 3 quarters). The relationship reminds me a lot of the Durant/Westbrook dynamic as one does not need to dominate the ball in order to score 25+ consistently. Amar’e is probably done as a 25 ppg guy, but as long as his 17 footer falls he should be a great fit in this offense. And before any of you point to the paint’s being clear, the great floor spacer that is Jared Jeffries is on court for a lot of this.